Spores are dormant alternate life forms produced by the genus Bacillus, the genus Clostridium, and several other genera of bacteria including Desulfotomaculum, Sporosarcina, Sporolactobacillus, Oscillospira, and Thermoactinomyces. Bacillus species are obligate aerobes that live in soil while Clostridium species are obligate anaerobes often found as normal flora of the gastrointestinal tract. The spore is not a reproductive structure but rather a resistant, dormant survival form of the organism.
Spore consists of multiple layers of resistant coats (including a cortex, a spore coat, and sometimes an exosporium) surrounding a nucleoid, some ribosomes, RNA molecules, and enzymes. Bacterial spores are resistant to antibiotics, most disinfectants, and physical agents such as radiation, boiling, and drying. The impermeability of the spore coat is thought to be responsible for the spore's resistance to chemicals. Spores can survive possibly thousands of years until a variety of environmental stimuli trigger germination, allowing outgrowth of a single vegetative bacterium in animals.
Although harmless themselves until they germinate, spores are involved in the transmission of some diseases to humans. Infections transmitted to humans by spores include anthrax, caused by Bacillus anthracis; tetanus, caused by Clostridium tetani; botulism, caused by Clostridium botulinum; and gas gangrene, caused by Clostridium perfringens. 
Bacillus anthracis is a spore-forming, gram-positive, soil-borne organism that causes disease in both animals and humans. Human disease presents in three forms: cutaneous, gastrointestinal, and inhalational anthrax. Unless antibiotics are administered early, inhalational anthrax is associated with a high mortality rate. The inhalational form of anthrax has become a major concern because of the potential for B. anthracis to be used in the aerosolized form as a bioweapon.
During the very early stages of inhalation anthrax, alveolar macrophages engulf inhaled spores and transport them to the regional lymph nodes. The spores germinate within the macrophages followed by growth of the vegetative bacilli and their release into circulation, where they are capable of replicating to a density of 108 CFU/ml.
B. anthracis is perhaps the most feared of all potential bacterial bioweapons. In inhalational anthrax, alveolar macrophages are believed to be the primary site for germination of B. anthracis spores. The ability of the bacteria to survive and grow within and to escape from this environment is thought to be critical for the disease to proceed.
Glycans and glycoconjugates have been shown to have numerous biological activities e.g. cell adhesion, cell-cell interactions, pathogen-host interactions, toxins in cancer and inflammation processes. Numerous pathogens use carbohydrate related interactions to gain entry into their hosts. For instance, bacteria and intestinal parasites, such as amoeba, mediate the sugar specific adherence of the organisms to epithelial cells and thus facilitate infection [1]. Numerous parasites and other infectious diseases synthesize glycans binding proteins for attachment and invasion of host cells. These parasites include helminths, ascaris, hookworms, malaria, amoeba, intestinal and genital flaggellates [2-4]. Furthermore, the differential expression of glycan binding molecules on the cell surfaces of organisms are correlated with pathogenicity and/or host specificity. Providing methods for delineating the interactions of surface carbohydrates between host cell and pathogen would provide useful information on understanding the biology and developing therapeutic strategies.
Therefore, a heretofore unaddressed need exists in the art to address the aforementioned deficiencies and inadequacies.